Bilingual children

Many people (especially those struggling with the grammar, accent and verb endings of a language) wish they had started learning a foreign language much earlier. Young children are able to learn a second language like they do a first language. Where adults have to work through grammar rules and translation, young children learn naturally, and absorb sounds and intonation patterns like a sponge. The young brain is hard-wired to acquire language; after this age, we have to work at it!

However, there are different ways of becoming bilingual, and some require a bit more effort. Families who live in a place which has a dominant language can be sure that their children will pick up the language when playing and interacting with others. French families living in England and English families living in France often find that the children speak the second language better than the parents! It is the same for families who live in a place where lots of people speak the same two languages: chances are that the child will learn both of them. And if the parents are of two different nationalities, the best option is for them to speak to their child in their native tongue if they want their child to pick up both languages. The difficulty lies in the fact that children need to be immersed in the language; it is harder for them if the language is not used much in the community or by the parents when speaking to each other.

In Europe, children who are bilingual from a young age tend to have parents of different nationalities. But this is not the case across the world. Studies reveal that nearly all children in Singapore who go to nursery school at 3-years-old can already speak two languages. Many children can speak 3. It is rare that a child grows up there with only one language, but it is not due to different nationalities in the home. Instead, most adults use two or three languages in their daily life, at home and at work and so switching between languages is the norm.

In India, language is linked to wealth: the richer you are, on the whole, the more languages you are exposed to from young childhood. Poorer groups tend to only speak one language. In Delhi, many people growing up in educated families will hear lots of Hindi and lots of English, and grow up with both.

The big question surrounding bilingual children is often this: will children be confused by hearing more than one language? According to current research, there is no need to worry because children separate the languages from the beginning. Anecdotal evidence suggests that some children have a transitional period where they confuse things, but eventually things just click. It used to be suggested that bilingual children took longer learning to speak than monolingual children, but this is no longer thought to be the case. Although it was once believed that bilingualism increased intelligence, more recent studies have found that it does not increase (or decrease) intelligence.

However, it is not all plain-sailing. Children brought up in a place with a community language sometimes reject the other language. Linguists believe that this is because parents do not provide the need for the language. Children, like adults, have to believe that what they are learning is useful.

By Bex

A la différence des adultes, apprendre une seconde langue ne pose aucun problème aux jeunes enfants. Ils le font même de façon tout à fait naturelle. (A écouter en V.O. (cliquez sur le fichier MP3) à la fin de l'article. A noter également qu’en passant votre souris sur les mots en italique, ces derniers apparaissent traduits en surimpression.

Article publié en partenariat avec MyCow.eu